Farza Majeed
Pakistani-American entrepreneur, founder of buildspace (2019–2024), now a founder-in-residence at Founders, Inc. 1. Started his first company at 13 selling Dragon Ball Z video games on eBay, expanding to blank DVDs and merchandise; by 15 the operation was generating $100K in annual revenue 1. Built gaming and machine-learning products that reached more than a million users before pivoting to education and community 1.
Early ventures
Majeed grew up in Pembroke Pines, Florida and studied computer engineering at the University of Central Florida 3. Before buildspace he built several gaming-adjacent products:
- Visor.gg — a real-time computer-vision model that coached Overwatch players. Blizzard banned it from the game in September 2018 6.
- Kanga — served as CTO, building machine-learning models to recommend gaming content to players 1.
- DeepLeague — open-source deep-learning models for League of Legends analytics, released on GitHub 10.
- League of Legends products that reached more than one million users 1.
In December 2019 he founded ZipSchool (originally ZipHomeschool), a live science-class platform for K–5 children 3. ZipSchool was admitted to Y Combinator's summer 2020 batch and received $125K 2. He shut it down in August 2021 citing a period of depression and loss of conviction, then pivoted the same corporate entity to a new product 2.
buildspace
buildspace publicly launched in December 2021 as a platform for project-based learning in Web3 and AI — free, self-paced "builds" covering Solidity, Solana, and Ethereum NFTs — monetized through sponsorships from companies like OpenAI 2. Majeed has consistently described its purpose as "the school I wish I had" 3:
"When I was going to university, it was very strange for someone to be working on their own ideas and pursue the path of not getting a job. I want to make that a path that is more default." 3
In November 2022 buildspace raised a $10M Series A at a $100M valuation, led by a16z with participation from Founders, Inc., Y Combinator, Protocol Labs, OrangeDAO, Solana Ventures, and OpenSea Ventures 5.
Over 2023 buildspace pivoted from self-paced courses to Nights & Weekends — a six-week cohort program open to builders working on any idea, from indie apps to music albums to community gardens 2. The seasons grew steeply: S1 ~500 participants, S2 ~3,000, S3 ~7,500, S4 ~18,000, and S5 over 120,000 27. Across the run, 3,000+ participants shipped products and 12M+ people saw buildspace content on Instagram and Twitter 2.
In July 2023 buildspace opened a physical campus at 2 Marina Blvd Building B — inside Fort Mason, the same building Founders, Inc. operates from today 2. About 1,000 participants attended in-person events across San Francisco and Dubai 2.
Shutdown
On August 23, 2024 Majeed announced buildspace was closing. The company had two years of runway, S5 had just been its biggest season, and there was a path to $3–5M ARR through sponsorships — the shutdown was not financial 4. The farewell letter framed it as creative exhaustion, not burnout in the medical sense:
"At this point I'm out of ideas to try that I can really put my all behind to take us further. All the paths I wanted to explore, I did. And I don't have a clear idea on the next path to go down. The desire to push like hell isn't burning as it once did." 4
"Instead of forcing something that doesn't feel right — I think sometimes you gotta have the strength to let go. Because what lies ahead may be more beautiful than what lies behind." 4
Asked later why he hadn't passed buildspace to a successor, Majeed said buildspace was "more of a community/brand versus a product that someone could come in and continue running" 8.
Four buildspace team members subsequently joined Founders, Inc.: Stavan Patel (founding team → Creative Director), Adrianna Lakatos (Portfolio & Ecosystem), Aiden Blumenstein (Programs & Storytelling), and Dante Lentini (Growth) 1.
After buildspace
Majeed left San Francisco after the shutdown and spent roughly six months in Morocco, the Czech Republic, and Pakistan before returning in early 2025 8. He has since shipped a string of small experiments — Tidbit (a collaborative Claude interface), Clicky (an open-source cursor-side AI tool), Freeewrite (an AI writing tool), and the live-coding platform makesomething.so 1. He operates under the company name Humansongs and can be reached at farza@humansongs.so 1.
On March 31, 2026 he announced he was rejoining Y Combinator 9:
"I decided to join Y Combinator, again. This was pretty random! I didn't apply or interview. I don't even have an idea of what I'll be working on yet." 9